On Friday 27 February, Big Think partner PwC hosted its second global webcast focused on the question, ‘What would you do if you were not afraid?’ The webcast was part of ‘Aspire to Lead: The PwC Women’s...

Designers of the new federal system for sending emergency alerts to our cell phones devoted at lot attention to setting up the technical aspects, but not enough to figuring out what the messages should say....

Must-See NASA Lunar Animation (with Recommended Playlist)

With its space shuttle program grounded, NASA has found a great way to stay relevant with its daily release of images and videos, which we are happy to serve up to you in this blog whenever we come across something particular spectacular in the cosmos. For instance, the video below is an animation of our view of the moon, covering the entire year of 2012, and a must-see for space junkies.

Kudos to the NASA GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio for capturing the "tipping, tilting, and rocking" of the Moon which the captions in the video explain are due to the Moon's elliptical orbit coupled with its tilt.

And yet, the video could use a little help when it comes to the soundtrack. NASA chose "Five Armies" by Kevin MacLeod, which isn't terrible, but could be greatly improved on, especially considering there is a whole sub-genre of classic rock called space rock, characterized by psychedelic sounds and astronomical themes.

We have compiled a Top 5 playlist (with a few honorable mentions -- we couldn't help ourselves) for you to queue up on iTunes or Spotify or, heck, on your old vinyl recordings. Enjoy.

They've Got Music in the Solar System! (A Space Porn Playlist)

1. Johnny B. Goode (this Chuck Berry classic was sent to space in 1977 on the Voyager Space Probe, and apparently the aliens loved it)

2. Space Oddity (the 1969 single that launched David Bowie into outer space)

3. Brain Damage/Eclipse (The lunatic is in my head:Syd Barrett's mental breakdown takes the form of a lunar eclipse in this Pink Floyd classic)

4. Bad Moon Rising (The apocalyptic refrain of this CCR hit is often misunderstood, and often parodied, as "there's a bathroom on the right")